Ewen McKenzie
Ewen McKenzie has stuck solid with his Wallaby side from the opening Bledisloe Cup clash to prevent dual droughts continuing in Auckland; a twelfth year without the prized trophy, and a 29th without victory at Eden Park.
But aside from on-field personnel, the Wallabies coach has continued to tinker with many of the team’s preparation and behavioural habits to snap both hoodoos against the All Blacks.
Though individually small, the changes are designed to add up to the Wallabies psychologically breaking the shackles of a long-run of defeat against New Zealand.
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It began last week when the Wallabies used a different formation to face the haka, where instead of the standard single-row line-up, the team “mirrored” the All Blacks and stood as an uneven bunch. The intention was to look like a group of greater size, and hence strength.
“They look heaps bigger (in number), they’re staggered, so I guess we just mirrored that. It was good,” rookie lock Will Skelton said.
The team’s travel arrangements have also been amended, with the Wallabies training all week in Sydney and only flying to Auckland tomorrow afternoon instead of earlier in the week, or even early in the day to fit in a session late arvo.
They’ll arrive at their hotel at 10pm and only have a captain’s run at Eden Park on Friday.
The switch is in part, said McKenzie, to ensure privacy and prevent prying eyes and lenses that are common when travelling, particularly in South Africa.
“Everywhere you go in the world, everyone is watching, Everyone likes to watch,” he said.
McKenzie has also booked the Wallabies into new digs after years and years of teams mindlessly being checked into the same Crowne Plaza hotel, but never checking out as victors.
“We’ve spent 20 years staying at one hotel, so we’re not staying at that hotel any more,” McKenzie said.
“Things will be different for the players. We are not doing everything the same.”
The changes are the latest in a constant shake up of life inside Camp Wallaby, according to insiders. Since taking over McKenzie has altered most things in daily life from meeting times and frequency down to the time of dinner, and even staying on the field at half-time.
McKenzie opted against change when it came to picking a team for the second Bledisloe Cup game, however, preferring to chase victory with a better performance — not new faces. The team was unchanged from numbers one to 23.
“You have to look at the game and say what worked, what didn’t? Was it to do with personnel, was it an issue to do with composure, an issue with the weather or cohesion with combinations?” McKenzie said.
“We didn’t start that well and we had a chance to win it at the end but we didn’t. So we will back the same group of guys to do it.”
“In the end we had a look at the video and there are plenty of things we can fix and tidy up, so we will concentrate on that. We haven’t changed the team.”
“We will concentrate on doing things better.”
McKenzie said review of game tape had also shown the wet weather wasn’t necessarily the big factor in a disjointed performance.
“We still carried the ball and endeavoured to play. The errors we made weren’t necessarily handling errors, they more like getting run into touch and bumping into each other so we can fix up that. That’s just communication and cohesion, and teamwork. So rather than change things around, let’s just focus on getting better as working as a group,” he said.